The Silver House
by MiuDestiny
Summary: This was for my Norse Mythology class in university, inspired by my love for Hetalia, in which it presents Norway, Denmark, and Iceland together discussing stories and I present my opinion and theories of their national immortality and relationships based on a historical view. It's a pleasant short-story with some humour and references to known Icelandic literature. Enjoy!


**Author's Note: Please do not steal or copy my work, for I consider this piece original though I do not claim the characters of Hetalia, that honour belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya, nor do I claim the Icelandic poems and works which I refer to. The ideas and theories however are my own so please respect that. Thank you!**

Somewhere in the grand house, an antique grandfather clock tolled twelve long peals, long and echoing down the dark hallways. Midnight. The house was as dark as the world outside its door and windows and just as silent. The wind was dead, as lifeless as the trees bearing no greenery, no life, and the late autumn landscape was draped in the pale shroud of moonlight from the full moon. Fed by this veil of silver, frost encroached over grass, puddles, and fences, and dying flower beds, festering into brilliant minuscule crystals of ice, destroying any tenacious plant life foolhardy enough to try and escape the coming winter's notice.

The land was cold, it's shivering evident in the falling of the dead leaves stirred by no breeze, and soon the sun also will hide its shining head from the landscape, its rosy fingers only touching the horizon, with the approaching polar night. Darkness and ice will soon be the masters on this land, making the lives of the humans who inhabitant it harder, but there remained a select few remarkable beings who would herald the coming winter with warmth and familiarity, similar to that of the return of a parent. These beings are not creatures of myth for they don't possess supernatural extremities like the wings of the fae-folk or powers of the divine. Even so, they are certainly not human, their appearances proven to be of the greatest deceptions in history, and are members of an endangered species.

If the general population would discover any member of their population or if their existence came into the knowledge of the wrong hands, it could spell war on a global scale.

With the last toll of midnight resounding through the house, the eyes of a figure opened to gaze up upon a monochromatic ceiling. Near silent, the figure, appearing to be a young man, pulled back the covers of his bed and slipped his feet onto the cool floorboards of the room. Moving like a phantom, the man in his dark pajamas crept across the floor and without hesitation, opened the heavy, wooden door and swung it open quietly and slowly. The hallway of the northern wing, his territory, was deserted save for the presence of age invisibly humming in the craftsmanship of the centuries old, imperial building. Striding forward on priceless carpets, moving through the dark guided by memory and impressive instinct, the man in the dark made his way down long halls, down an exquisite set of a grand staircase, down more corridors, until he to a set of twin doors guarding an area that was strictly his. Humans would be too terrified to even come close to these doors in fear of the consequences.

Puling down the latch, he heaved the massive door open enough for his slim figure to slip inside, before reclosing it once more. The room wasn't explicitly special, with its large bay windows facing the metallic landscape; a grand hearth occupying nearly a full wall, while wall-to-ceiling bookcases smothered the remainders. A comfortable, though expensive and delicately detailed, set of furniture stood guard in front of the great fireplace, ready and willing to support the avid bibliophile. However, this night was unlike any other in the house, for darkness of the night had already been chased into the corners of the room with the flickering light of a mighty fire. Someone had beaten him to the room, but was he surprised? Not in the slightest. The firelight illuminated the sheen of the man's blond hair, the fair paleness in his skin, and the brilliance and depth of the shade of blue in his eyes. Sitting aside the hearth in a loveseat, sat a younger looker boy, presumably in his adolescence when compared to human appearances, with his short silver-shaded hair highlighted and purple eyes focused on the book he clutched in his lap.

The boy didn't even glance at the sound of the door, instead he turned the page, while the blond man stepped more into the vicinity of the fire until he came to the loveseat and sat gracefully beside the silver-haired boy. The man was more than accustomed with the boy's apparent indifference, for the boy took after his own nature, though the blond man rarely expressed much emotion, the boy was as unpredictable as his volcanoes and his indifference was only skin deep.

"It's about time you got here," the boy huffed out, his fine lips pulling down into a frown ever so slightly.

'Impatient as always,' thought the man, before he said, "You had said midnight, and so I came at midnight. Though once again, I do not understand why such secrecy is necessary. It is my house after all".

The boy scoffed under his breath, half turning over another page before he closed the book completely look up at the blond man whom he shared a stunning resemblance, almost to the point that an observer could say they were blood related, brothers even. Reaching up to scratch his nose, the younger-looking boy rolled his eyes, "Ja, but where's the fun in doing this when there's all those… people walking around, banging on the door, asking you to sign this or that".

The man gave no reply save for a blink of his eyelids, his gaze glancing at the warm fire, the heat stirring up memories of another kind of fire, one that burned with the essence of survival, but those memories belonged with history. "True enough," he said finally. "Have you chosen?"

The boy's eyes brightened up, his features shining with the youth he stubbornly tried to deny with the air of maturity, as he smiled and revealed with careful hands in addition to the book in his lap, a couple others. "I could not decide between the _Snorra Edda_, the _Völsungasaga_, or one of your collections of _Fornaldarsögur_…" His voice trailed off as his eyes already began to scan the aged editions of the texts, originals of course, all handwritten in Old Icelandic, bound in sure bindings that were maintained by the best bookbinders in Scandinavia.

"We won't be able to read those all tonight, you know," the man said, looking back at the boy, a smile playing faintly at the corner of his lips. "You're going to have to choose, Iceland".

The boy half-heartedly chuckled, glancing up at his companion, his eyes dancing with humor, "You know how ironic that is? Asking me to choose one piece of work of my own country, it's like me asking which of your fjords is your favorite".

"I do have a favorite," the man said, reaching over to pick up a rather weighty book, his fingers grazing the cover with the essence of delicacy. "I don't think we can manage _Fornaldarsögur_ tonight…" The man's Icelandic was perfect, though it was not his language of choice; however, the language did remind him of Old Norse, a dead language that he still spoke fluently because it was his language of birth after all. Over the millennia however, cultures, people, and tongues changed so much that now his national tongue was Norwegian. "I remember when I bought this… sometime during the 13th century I believe".

"I remember that, you came to visit me, it was during your "golden age," the boy mocked quotations in the air with his hands, grinning a bit before it faltered. "Right before the Black Death struck you, Norway".

"Ja," the Norwegian said curtly, with a sad note in his voice, for he still remembered those dark times quite vividly, unable to help his people while feeling his nation's pain by growing weaker himself to the point of actually becoming bedridden.

Being immortal did not come without pain, suffering, heartache, toil, blood, death, and war. These immortals were not gods, though if the general public were to discover them, surely several religious groups would consider them as, or at least abominations to nature. On the contrary, they were the personifications of nature, of landmasses, of entire populations of people. They were countries, nations in humanized form, able to feel, fight, fornicate, sleep, eat and cry, just like any normal person on the planet, except for the fact that they could not die. Well, in true fact they could, but not by bullet, blade, or bacteria. No, to kill one of these personified nations, these beings, would be to kill the very soul of the people, a population's nationality, through years of war, conquest, politics, and legal documents. It has occurred before, plenty of times, most notably the Roman Empire, a nation as strong as one could be, but due to internal turmoil, the divisions of power, and the dealings of men, he faded, vanished, remembered only in his Italic descendants and in history books.

The two men sitting on the loveseat by the fire were two of these nations. The white-hared boy was Iceland, the island in the North Atlantic. Beside him, was the closest a nation could be to being a brother, Norway, who could call himself around three thousand years old if he wished to, though he looked to be in his mid-twenties. Norway's peoples had settled Iceland, and was once the dominating force in Europe: a murderous, pillaging, Viking who now wore silken pajamas and sometimes needed glasses to read. They were, along with their other national brethren, countries' best-kept secret, classified beyond Top Secret, based down to rulers, monarchs, presidents, and governments. These were their bosses; Norway had his king, Iceland his president, spirits of a country ruled and sustained by their peoples, though tonight these two men were free from mountains of paperwork and political meetings to enjoy the company forged between them over the centuries.

Norway stood to replace the priceless volume back into its rightful place, before returning to the Icelander's side, looking over at him with a brow raised, still waiting for an answer from him. "Remember, we don't have all night and I do have a lunch date with Harald today, so I would rather look somewhat rested for that."

"Ja, ja…" Iceland muttered waving him off. Looking down at the all-too familiar titles, the younger country probably knew them both by heart down to the punctuation. Having his Norwegian kin read it to him reminded him of a simpler time, when he was a child and Norway his true brother, his caregiver, and the world was not as complicated and as fast as it was in modern times, when things could be settled with a good battle of steel and sweat. Denmark had been his parent too, and thinking of the Danish country, a shade of guilt spread across his violet eyes and he glanced at Norway with a wry smile.

"What-" Norway managed when a knock on the door made them both look towards the door before the blond looked back at the silver-haired boy frowning, and inquired in a lower voice, "What did you do?"

Before Iceland could answer, the door swung open to announce the arrival of a tall man, whose permanently stand up blond hair and wide grin caused a small smile from Iceland and unimpressed frown from Norway. The man was about six feet tall (taller than both Norway and Iceland), well-built, had a light step as he gently closed the door and crossed the room to meet him with his blue eyes radiating with a happiness that never seemed to dim.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, slept through my alarm. Did you guys start yet?"

Ignoring the newcomer Norway glanced to Iceland, eyes bored and exasperated looking, and said dryly, "You invited, Denmark? I thought you just wanted us alone?"  
"Well, I did…" Iceland began, a bright blush tinted his pale cheeks as the nation scratched the back of his neck, casting both Norway and Denmark glances. "He overheard me talking about what books I wanted to read and he wouldn't shut up until I told him, and…"

"Awe, come on Norge! You know how much I love stories!" The Dane grinned wider, unperturbed by the Norwegian's obvious disapproval and the Icelander's awkwardness and came to plunk down in between them. His wide warrior body making the loveseat suddenly rather cramped and took one of the books and started to thumb through them. "True I prefer Andersen but these are good too!"

With careful yet strong fingers, Norway pried the books away from the Dane's brutishly large hands before he ripped the old pages of his editions; again he wondered why Denmark had insisted on staying the week at his place, he did not know. Probably something to do with the fact the Dane was still crazy about him but four centuries of rule did that he guessed. "Okay, you can stay, but lower your voice before you wake all of Oslo!"

Immune to the Norwegian's harsh tone, Denmark grinned wide and immediately clamped his hands in between his knees, his lips sewn together with his smile, and looked remarkably like a child waiting for his bedtime story and not like the thousands of years old former King of the North he was. Norway simply rolled his eyes and smoothed the cover of the _Völsungasaga_, and sat back, trying to get comfortable, but Denmark's wide, muscular shoulders were making that a chore. "Island! Choose already!" he said with a sigh, leaning forward to look around Denmark at whom he considered his little brother.

"Can I choose if he doesn't?" Piped in Denmark, but he snapped his mouth shut once more from the glare Norway cast him.

"I think…" Iceland began, trialing off his voice, and not even phased by Norway and Denmark's relationship. True that the two countries got along famously, as in their people and governments, but ever since Norway had freed himself from Danish and gained his own independence, the Norwegian preferred a distance from the Dane, claiming once that the Skagerrak was not enough sometimes. Denmark on the other hand saw Norway as his best friend and considered the shorter man's coldness his own special way of showing he cared, because if Norway stopped responding to him completely, omitting him from his life, would be when Denmark would come to understand that the Norwegian truly disliked him. Besides, millennia of friendship, partnership, and companionship outlived a few centuries of rule, strain, and war, right? In the end, Iceland didn't think much about it, wanting to designate his "parents" as happy together since they weren't at war with each other at the moment; however, though claiming that he was also in denial wouldn't be met with a straightforward rebuff.

"The _Völsungasaga,_" he said finally, getting up to replace the beautiful edition of the _Snorra Edda _back into its place, before turning back and taking a moment to look at Norway and Denmark sitting together on the couch. The boy frowned, though his eyes were smiling, prolonging his return to the loveseat by tossing a few more logs onto the dying fire. Coming before Denmark, who looked at him as innocent as can be, the Icelander rested a hand on his hip and made a shooing motion with his other. "I get middle," he declared, his youth showing in his stubborn tone, and he watched with some sliver of satisfaction when his former liege scooted over without complaint, allowing for Iceland to settle in-between to two Nordic countries.

"It's a shame Sweden couldn't come, he likes hearing stories too," Denmark remarked, stretching an arm across the back of the couch to idly play with Norway's golden blond hair.

"Ja, he had a meeting with Finland," Norway replied, shrugging away the brute's fingers without much enthusiasm; it was safe to say that the Nordic was used to the Dane's annoyances.

"If he had been here, it would almost be like the old times, us sitting around the fire, sharing stories, drinking mead, Denmark being a idiot and showing off how he decapitated, what was it? Ten humans at once? Or was it twenty?" Iceland's tone dripped with teasing and sarcasm, elbowing the older blond in the side, rousing a chuckle from the other who brandished his snow-white teeth with pride and without any trace of offense.

"Ja! Those were the best of times! You were so young and adorable back then, Island! How you tried to pick up my axe but couldn't… and it was more like I sent twenty-five humans heads rolling! No one could defeat the mighty Danmark!" The Dane's attempt of showing off his muscles through his athletic shirt, his loud and obnoxious laughter defused by Iceland's hard jab into his gut; redemption for being called cute as shown with the deep flush of crimson painted from his eyes to his neck.

Norway, accustomed and uninterested in Denmark's antics, was staring thoughtfully into the fire, the other nations' words rousing once more memories of a simpler time. His hair had been longer then, long enough to braid, as was the custom of the North, and the feeling of sailing the North Atlantic with his men, Denmark, Sweden, and a child Iceland. With his youth, Norway used to express more, smile and laugh more, finding a thrill and joy in his own bloodlust when say pillaging and burning villages of Scotland; the Scotsman to this day still held a small grunge against him for those early pages in history. Nowadays, all they had left was history and memories, personal armories of ancient weapons that greedy human historians would die to get their filthy hands on to display in some museum.

Beside him, Denmark and Iceland continued to jokingly bicker, the Dane's boisterous humor undaunted by the Icelander's hot-headedness: just like his country, he could appear cold but was rather get quite heated and passionate just under the surface. Idly, Norway blinked and looked over at the pair, not even wanting to remind them to be quiet, but just watched and stared at them with his even, indifferent, and intense gaze before Denmark finally caught sight of him and froze with his finger inches away from giving Iceland a wet willy. Dropping his hands like a child caught by a parent, he shot Norway a sunny smile, transferring his hand into a one-armed hug around Iceland's shrugged shoulders.

"Must I remind you that we're burning moonlight? I could very well just go to bed, though I'll see Valhalla first before I leave you two in here alone".

"Oh, Norge, we're just having a bit of fun. I never get to see you guys aside from boring meetings". Denmark's features softened, showing that he truly was grateful for being with them and that he was subliminally admitting how much he missed them both.

"Ja, Norway, but you're right, so Denmark, stop being an idiot and let him read!"

Denmark's chuckles echoed in the Norwegian's ears as he gazed down at the cover of the saga in his hand and with gentle fingers, opened the cover to the reveal to first page. On the inside of the cover, was an inscription of gratitude to Norway from the man whose hand had written the edition. The ink had faded over time but the writer's appreciated was truly reflected in the lines depicting the journey of Sigurðr, the power of Odin, and the pain of Brynhildr. The man's eyes flickered across the first line and his mouth momentarily fluttered into a frown. 'I should have grabbed my glasses,' he thought, pressing his lips together in his focus and shifting his position to catch more of the firelight upon the pages.

"Hey, Norway?"

"Ja?" The Norwegian looked over at Iceland, brow raised in patient inquiry.

"Have you ever seen a dragon?"

The words sparked a vision to blur before Norway's eyes and he saw a much younger Iceland, clambering onto his lap, and asking him the very same question. The Norwegian's lips softened into the ghost of a smile, his eyelids blinking away the vision and returning Iceland to his modern appearance, before his blue eyes became thoughtful. "I thought I did, once, before civilization killed the land's imagination and our legends and gods became nothing more than stories and mythology. I had been alone up on my fjords when a great shadow befell me but when I looked up, though there were no clouds nor foul in the sky. The next thing I heard was a great splash rang through the valley and I managed to look in time to see that something large had just entered the sea, the creature's shadow disappearing into the deep. I stared for many minutes at the ocean, hoping I would see it again, but never did".

"It was a whale".

"Shut up, Denmark!"

"Well, it probably was!" The Dane grinned and ruffled the Icelander's hair, loving how much the younger man still yearned for his brother's stories of fantastical creatures, of forest trolls, goblins, and dragons. "I also remember that day, Norway came running towards me as if he had seen Odin himself and I admit, I had believed him. It was much easier to believe in the unexplainable before the Christians came and killed the old ways".

"No, Danmark… Now is not the time for that old rant," Norway rebuked, tone threatening, as he was slightly miffed that the Dane had interrupted him in the first place to tease Iceland.

Denmark only waved him off, admitting defeat. "I know, I'm not. I was just saying that back when we were younger, dragon and trolls did exist, because the people believed they did. Nowadays, people see a cave and see nothing but exactly that, a cave, though there was once a time not that long ago when people used to offer gifts and food to that cave to appease the spirit or creature inside". Resting one of his legs over the other, returning his arm to the back of the loveseat to stroke Norway's hair, Denmark shrugged, "The world used to be more exciting is all I'm getting at".

Iceland looked at him before crossing his arms, sighing in exasperation, "Don't you think I know that? I just like hearing the dragon story!" After a few Icelandic smacks upon a Danish head, Iceland sat back with a huff, pouting out his lower lip, while Denmark rubbed his head, his smile persistent through his blush. The trip fell into silence; the crackle of the fire filling the space and for a moment the reason that they were all huddled on that loveseat seemed to slip away until Norway gently closed the book and stood.

"I'm going to bed," he declared, taking the book with him and headed for the door.

"Oh, no you don't!" Denmark announced, jumping up and before either Norway or Iceland could do anything about it, the Danish brute heaved the Norwegian over his shoulder, patting his toned rump. "Nope! We came here for a story and that is exactly what's going to happen!" Returning to the couch, swung Norway with skilled hands into a bridal-styled hold, pointedly not meeting the Norwegian's furious and blushing face, before he gestured for him to start reading like it had been his fault that they hadn't begun yet.

"Denmark. You're an idiot," Iceland mumbled, his tone and expression not at all impressed to match his brother's, but all the same he huddled in close against Norway's back and the Dane's shoulder, feet hanging over the armrest.

Norway, rather then starting an actual fight or smashing the fire poker over Denmark's thick head, swatted away the Dane's hands, shifted to make himself more comfortable on his lap, and reopened the text to begin reading, "Hér hefr upp ok segir frá þeim manni, er Sigi er nefndr ok kallaðr, at héti son…" just as a lone toll of the grandfather clock announced to the house that yet another hour had passed.

Aside from the room that housed three extraordinary beings, who represented nations constructed by humans and history, the grand house in the Norwegian capital was silent, asleep. Any passerby would think that the house belonged to some rich aristocrat, a member of the royal Norwegian family, and they would be right, partly. For many, the world runs fairly straightforward: natural phenomenona are explained via science and logic, and magic and the unexplainable belong in controversies, mythologies, legends and stories. As morning approaches, bringing clarity to the rampage of the night's frost, announcing to the world that winter was beginning his domain over his north, the first rosy streaks of sunlight fall through the grand Norwegian house to land upon the sleeping faces of three men, all cuddled together on a single loveseat, aside a smoldering fire. The tallest and strongest of the trio had his arms around the other too, his head fallen back against the back of the small sofa, his seemingly gravity defying hair catching the fragile rays of sunlight as did the dribble of drool from his mouth. The shorter, leaner blond on his lap held the youngest of the three, brothers in arms, and clutched to the chest of the silver-haired boy was the priceless volume of an Icelandic literature milestone, opened to the very last page, before the boy shifted in his sleep and the book slid from his chest to the floor, where it landed with its cover facing upwards.

The _Völsungasaga._


End file.
